Archive for the ‘Cool Link’ Category

Last night, John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” did a piece on state legislatures. If I could embed YouTube clips into my research papers, I would, but for now I will use SteveRogers.info.

Last Week Tonight actually emailed me asking for some statistics. None were directly used in the piece, however the facts that no one runs against incumbent legislators; no one knows who their legislator is; and legislatures pass considerably more bills than Congress make appearances in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the dissertation. Unfortunately, my email exchanges with Last week Tonight trailed off. If they would have continued, I would have suggested this clip

On a short note, I will try to update SteveRogers.info more frequently now that life has settled. As many readers likely know, it has been an interesting two years for Steve – who is finally a Billiken.

One, did you know legislators strategically use prisons in redistricting. I actually find this extraordinarily clever. See here for more.

Second, the Oregon State Legislature:

Do you think a Harry Reid-John Boehner rendition of Rebecca Black’s Friday would prevent the shutdown? It would be hard though to sneak in “gotta have my cereal” into the congressional record. The “laboratories of democracy” should get on this.

She emails and GChats these to friends. I suggested she make a blog about it. I offered to set her up with a domain name, CoolStreetNames.com, and she has started posting some her finds. Below is my favorite so far. When driving around here: Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Well, a little older than our age. This e-mail forward turned message board post on The Lounge. It has some interesting little thoughts, here are a few of my favorites. Fuller list after the jump.

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.

I would rather try to carry 10 grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

“If Verizon’s 70 million customers leave or check messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year.” – From NYTimes via Matt

“the creation of the modern police force came about in london following the creation of mass-produced cheap gin, which produced so much violence in the streets and homes that a professional force to keep order had to be created.” – via List Serve